


Get Bruised Before You Get Mad

by Mithen



Category: All Elite Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Friendship/Love, Gen, Light Angst, Miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:08:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25664137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithen/pseuds/Mithen
Summary: After he's stripped of the Intercontinental Title, Sami Zayn has a decision to make.  There's one spot on the AEW roster.  But who deserves it more: Sami or his best friend?
Relationships: Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn
Comments: 10
Kudos: 14
Collections: Extreme Deadline Exchange '20





	Get Bruised Before You Get Mad

**Author's Note:**

  * For [storyranger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/storyranger/gifts).



_You gotta get bruised before you get mad  
You gotta fall down before you fight back  
Was feeling so weak but baby I'm strong  
Little did I know I'm a champion.  
\--Bishop Briggs_

**The offer still stands, you know.**

Sami Zayn was sitting on his front porch when the text came in. No--Sami Zayn, _former Intercontinental champion,_ was sitting on his porch when the text came in. He had, in fact, only learned a half hour ago that he was the former champion: _Cody’s still got some good connections to find out so fast,_ he thought with a mirthless chuckle. He put his phone down and stared out at the rainbows glittering through the sprinklers in the low evening sun. He could hear a dog barking and a low hum of a lawnmower from three houses over. The air smelled of cut grass and fresh paint. Charlie Brown heaved his marmalade tabby bulk up and leapt from the chair next to his onto Sami’s lap with a questioning little throaty trill. Sami absently rubbed the cat’s throat, feeling the throb of his purr beneath his fingers. He paused, taking everything in, fixing the moment in his memory.

The moment he committed to it.

After a while he picked the phone back up. **Same offer as before?** Cody would know what he meant.

The answer was almost immediate: **Yeah. Only one spot. Times are tight.**

So there it was: one space on the AEW roster. But only one. 

He could go. 

Or someone else could go.

He sat and watched the rainbows fade into darkness as the sun set. 

* * *

“...so thanks for all your support, it really means the world to me.” Kevin finished up the Cameo recording as the dogs caught a well-known scent and lunged forward down the sidewalk, pulling him along through the night. “Geez, Luna,” he grumbled at the dog in the lead, “hold your horses.” But he was grinning as they rounded the corner and he saw the familiar porch come into view.

Charlie Brown arched, hissed, and jumped off Sami’s lap to go bounding into the shadows as Kevin let himself be dragged onto his lawn by his eager pack. “Okay, okay, you can go get some ear scritches,” Kevin said to Luna, letting her off the leash. Luna went up the stairs, wagging her tail so hard that she staggered, and plunged at Sami.

“How was the taping?” Sami said. He was looking down at Luna, rubbing her ears as she squirmed on his lap in doggy ecstasy.

“Oh, same old same old,” Kevin said, sitting down on the steps. “Seth got a new disciple, Apollo was awesome. He’s got a match for the U.S. title next week.”

“You should be gunning for it,” Sami said.

“Maybe I will,” Kevin said. “I’ll let Apollo shoot his shot for now. Andrade definitely deserves to lose that title, though.”

“You should be a contender for the WWE championship.”

Kevin shook his head, laughing a little. “You just won’t let that go, will you?”

“You deserve it.”

“Look,” Kevin said, “I just don’t feel like fucking with McIntyre right now. He deserves that title too. Plus he’s got to deal with annoying assholes like Lashley. Better him than me.”

This was all absolutely true, Kevin thought as they sat in a silence broken only by the happy panting of his dogs. These were all really good reasons not to be aiming for the two Raw titles. But if he were honest with himself--something he _always_ was, of course, this was definitely not a recent habit he’d developed--he didn’t really want that stupid United States championship anyway. All he had were bad memories of his various runs with it, from winning it off Jericho at WrestleMania to swapping it back and forth with Styles. It had been a shitty summer, and even the new look of the title couldn’t quite scrub away the memory of staring at it and feeling bleak and empty.

The WWE championship--well, of course he wanted that one. It was the only main singles title he hadn’t held. He supposed that meant it was the only main roster title left that Sami could ever hold before he did. Not that that had any bearing on his lack of interest in it.

As for the SmackDown titles--the Universal title was held by Braun Strowman, which meant the Fiend was stalking it, and Kevin didn’t want anything to do with the Fiend. More importantly, he didn’t want anything to do with _Bray Wyatt,_ not since watching John Cena fall into a nightmare funhouse mirror and disappear. He would pass on that shit, thank you very much.

And the Intercontinental? Kevin often talked about how he had held that belt exactly as many days as Owen Hart had held it, and how he wanted to keep it that way. He meant that.

(Also, it was _Sami’s_ title).

“I just want to see you with a title again.” Sami’s face was set in almost sullen lines as he stared down at Luna. 

Kevin felt a jolt of something kind of like annoyance go through him. “Look, don’t be fucking condescending,” he said. Sami’s gaze snapped up to him as Kevin continued, “Just because you have a belt and I don’t, that doesn’t make you better than me, and you--”

“--You don’t know,” Sami said blankly. “You haven’t heard.”

Kevin’s heart sank. “Haven’t heard what?” he said, although he was pretty sure he knew.

“They stripped me of the title,” Sami said.

They sat on the porch together for a long time in silence, listening to the sizzle of a bug zapper and a dog losing its mind down the street. George whined and tried to lick Kevin’s face. Kevin tried to think of the right words.

After far too long, he finally just said _”Fuck”_ from the bottom of his heart, and that seemed to be close enough to the right response.

* * *

Something was bothering Sami. Clearly a lot of things were bothering Sami: his shoulders, and being cooped up at home, and the entire state of the fucking world. But Kevin could tell something else was bothering Sami. He just couldn’t get Sami to talk about it.

Instead, Sami kept talking about Kevin’s career all the time.

“You never really had a chance to get closure with Chris Jericho, did you?” he asked one morning over takeout hummus on a park bench halfway between their houses. “That must be frustrating.”

Kevin laughed. “I took his title and sent him packing, didn’t I?” but Sami just frowned.

“You’ve only had one match with Kenny Omega, huh?” Sami said on another night as they walked around the lake. “He’s brilliant. You two approach wrestling a lot the same way, really. I wish you had more chances to talk to him.”

“Well, share his number with me, we can text,” Kevin said.

“That’s not what I meant,” Sami said, scowling.

The final straw came when Sami brought up Jon Moxley. “You guys had a great feud, back before I was even on the main roster,” he reminded Kevin as they sat on his porch, watching Dynamite on Kevin’s iPad. “I bet you could really tear it up if you ever had a chance to fight each other again.”

“Not likely, all things considered,” Kevin said lightly. “That whole ‘different promotions’ thing is kind of a damper.”

“So apparently you’re perfectly happy here in WWE, being Apollo’s hype man and having Angel Garza try to break your knees.” Sami sounded almost annoyed, which in turn sparked a jolt of annoyance in Kevin: was it so bad to be content?

“No, I’m not _perfectly fucking happy,_ ” he snapped. “But you gotta learn when to compromise, right? You gotta be realistic.”

Sami’s face was set in almost sullen lines as he stared out at the dusk. “Realistic. That’s nifty,” he muttered.

Kevin reached out and grabbed for the iPad, sending it clattering; Jon Moxley’s voice cut off abruptly mid-promo. “Spit it out, Sami. You think I don’t know what’s bothering you? Just _spit it out._ You’ve got an offer, don’t you? That’s why you’re going on about titles and feuds and all that; you’re going to jump ship to AEW. You want my blessing? Of course you have it. You don’t need it to shine, you never have. It’s just--” His throat closed up and it suddenly was hard to speak. “It’s just… I’ll miss you.” He blinked hard at a peeling bit of paint on the porch railing. “I know that’s stupid. You’ll be right here, I’ll be down the street from you like always. But I’ll still… I’ll still miss you.”

Without warning, Charlie Brown appeared out of the night and jumped into Kevin’s lap, kneading at his jeans with his big paws and purring. He stuck his tail under Kevin’s nose and Kevin snorted and stroked his back.

“There’s an offer on the table from AEW,” Sami finally said, and even though he’d known it, Kevin felt the shock of it run from his heart down to his shoes. “There’s one spot on the roster.”

Kevin was still assembling the necessary words of congratulation, still searching for the right tone of teasing pride, when Sami went on:

“I want you to have it.”

Kevin squinted down at Charlie Brown’s fur as Sami kept talking.

“You’d be so great there, Kevin. Imagine you against Lance Archer, or wrestling Orange Cassidy. I talked to Cody, and he said he could call in some favors and get an early release if necessary. It should be you, Kev. I mean, with my shoulders--”

“--Fuck your shoulders, you’ll find a way to wrestle that’s not so hard on them and you’ll be fine, you’ll be _transcendent,_ you’ll be everything you deserve to be without being tied to me, and--”

Sami was on his feet now, eyes blazing. He kicked Kevin’s chair and Charlie Brown leaped into the night. “‘Tied to you,’ you asshole, do you even _hear_ yourself? Stop thinking about what I ‘deserve’ and think about what _you_ want!”

“What I want?” Kevin was on his feet now too. “What _I_ want? All I want in this whole fucking _stupid_ world is to be where you are!” Sami blinked as Kevin barreled on: “I can get titles anywhere, I can have great matches anywhere, I can even make good money anywhere, but the one thing I _can’t_ do anywhere is be in the same promotion with the greatest wrestler in the world. I can— I can only do that with you.” He lifted his hands and let them fall again. “It’s all I want.”

Sami looked away from him, into the night, and Kevin thought he was going to keep arguing, but then he laughed under his breath. “I’m an idiot,” he said.

“Well. Yeah,” said Kevin. “But so am I.”

Sami nodded solemnly. “True.” The corner of his mouth tilted up. “Lucky for me.”

Ignoring whatever the hell that meant, Kevin sighed and sat back down. “AEW’s only got space for one more wrestler, huh?”

“Yeah,” Sami said. “That’s what Cody said: ‘One spot available on the roster. Let me know if you want it.’”

Kevin nodded to himself. Then he went back over what Sami had just said. Then he went back over it again, feeling a dawning excitement. “Wait, he said there was one _spot_? Not room for one _person_?”

“Yeah, that’s what…” Sami’s voice trailed off and he stared at Kevin. “No. You’re not thinking-- It _couldn’t_ be that simple.”

Kevin could feel the beginnings of a grin tugging at his lips. “If it were from the Bucks, or even from Omega-- but Cody only really knows us as singles wrestlers, and he’s focused on singles competition himself. Maybe--” He swallowed, almost afraid to hope. “Text him and check.”

Sami was already tapping at his phone. Kevin could see his fingers shaking slightly. “I’m telling him…” He looked up at Kevin from under the tangle of red curls, almost shyly. “I’m telling him we’re a package deal. We’re one spot, you and I.”

“That sounds good,” said Kevin, with a sense of vast understatement. “That sounds just right.”

There was a pause that seemed to stretch on forever after Sami hit send. Cody could be busy with other things, Kevin told himself. He might not get back to them for days. Charlie Brown slipped back out of the shadows and curled up in Sami’s lap. Sami petted him absently, keeping his eyes on the phone. Neither he nor Kevin said anything.

The phone buzzed and they both jumped, jolting a sleepy noise of protest out of the cat.

Sami picked up the phone.

He lifted his eyes from the screen to smile at Kevin, and everything finally fell back into place.

* * *

Sami watched as Kevin re-laced his boots with unsteady fingers. He missed a hole and cursed quietly under his breath. From a distance, Sami could hear Kenny Omega’s voice talking about opportunities and new beginnings.

“Just stop it, for Pete’s sake,” he said, kneeling down to finish lacing Kevin’s boots. Kevin swallowed hard and let him. “Okay,” Sami said. “You’re ready to go.”

“We’re ready to go,” said Kevin, and clasped Sami’s shoulder. At the touch, Sami felt as if the world was falling into lines and patterns, and he could see it all: the explosion on Twitter as he and Kevin walked out to interrupt the tag team champs, the delight on Omega’s face, the puzzled disdain on Page’s. He could see the whole feud unfold, how they’d have to go through FTR to get their title shot, how Page would come to respect them and Omega to despise them, how eventually they would lift the belts together in front of a crowd, an actual screaming crowd. Someday.

But someday was coming, he knew with no doubts as he and Kevin stepped together into the future.


End file.
